An Arm & A Leg for eCommerce?

An Arm & A Leg for eCommerce?

As a site designer myself, I realize how much time and effort goes into registering, setting up, and designing a site; not to mention the creation of content and seamless navigation. But it is unbelievable how complicated and expensive this process has become!

Let's face it, very few entrepreneurs and small businesses can afford to spend hundreds of dollars to set up their dot-com presence without knowing how successful it will be! We've seen the results of high expectations and over spending with the demise of many well-known companies as reported in the news recently.

It doesn't have to be this way!

Are you planning to sell products or services?

You do NOT necessarily need expensive shopping cart software or merchant accounts to sell your products or services. You can begin your online venture by setting up a few of your most popular items or services that can be purchased online. Once a customer has made a purchase, you can then follow up with details on how to purchase additional items.

There are low cost ecommerce solutions that can help you start conducting business online without breaking the bank.

First, determine exactly how sophisticated your ordering process needs to be. Then decide which of the following options best suits your business needs.

Option A - PayPal

Set up a Premier Account with PayPal. PayPal is a stable and secure company that has been around long enough to establish a credible reputation. I can personally vouch for them, I use them consistently.

Benefits:

Doing Business As: You have the option of using a business name or your personal name, regardless of how your bank account is registered.

Low Cost: There are no monthly fees and no set up fees. That’s right - it’s
free.

A small fee is with-held each time a transaction (purchase) is processed.

Hassle Free: They process all orders and notify you when payment is received.

Referral Bonus: You can earn a small cash bonus for qualified referrals you send to PayPal.

Features:

Shopping Cart: Premium members can set up a shopping cart that links directly from their site to PayPal.

Send an Invoice: If your services or product prices vary, you can send customers an invoice from PayPal once the purchase price has been established.

Option B - eBay

Consider selling your products or services through eBay. You can accept checks and money orders by postal mail, or you can accept credit cards and checks using PayPal, or eBay’s version of PayPal - BillPoint. You can provide links to your site with each item you list for auction. You can also set up a reserve amount - the least dollar amount you will accept for your service or product.

Ebay also offers an affiliate program.

Option C - ClickBank

Sign up as a merchant with ClickBank.net. There are some fees involved, plus you have to determine what percentage of each sale that you will allow the referring site to earn. Affiliates with ClickBank can choose merchants they like (higher commission percentages do better) and then place links on their sites. There is a setup fee for merchants, but you'll also be providing your site a great deal of exposure. Plus, ClickBank allows you to accept credit cards and other methods of payment. You'll be setting up your own affiliate program!

Option D - Find a Host that provides Shopping Carts

Many hosting packages are set up with shopping carts with a buy feature. Do your homework. Check on the setup fees and the monthly fees. Make sure it’s a reputable company so you aren’t worried about your money transactions.

These are just some of the options that are available for setting up shop without going broke. I'm sure that there are many more options available - it just takes some net research.

Ecommerce development for Microsoft Great Plains: tools and highlights for programmer

Ecommerce development for Microsoft Great Plains: tools and highlights for programmer

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics and eEnterprise was designed in earlier 1990th as ERP, which can be easily transferable to the winning Database and OS platform and it was originally available on Mac and PC – Mac OS and Microsoft Windows respectively. Graphical platforms battle is pretty much over and now with eCommerce demands, we should look at Great Plains Dynamics tables structure:

• Naming Convention. Great Plains was designed to be ready to move to the winning database platform and probably this is why we see this a bit complicated naming convention in place: SOP10100, RM00101, IV00101 – these are samples: SOP header, Customer master, Inventory master. First – we see module prefix: SOP – Sales Order Processing, RM – Receivables management, IV – Inventory control, etc., then 0 stays for the master files, 1 – so-called work files (before transaction being posted), 2 – open files (after transaction is posted) and 3 – historical files (when you close the year in General Ledger – transactions are moved from open to history files). So as you see – logic is present and structured, but it is not friendly to the developer, who never seen and worked with Great Plains Dynamics.

• Tables Groups. Great plains was designed to first serve mid-size businesses and then with the availability of third party modules – the intention was to compete on corporate ERP market with Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and others big players. This is why we see the whole cluster of tables to store, say Sales Invoice: SOP Header, SOP Lines, SOP Distribution, RM Key file, etc.

From the Forms side (or screens) you can see more human-readable names: SOP Entry, RM_Customer_Maintenance, POP_Entry or the like. But these legacy Great Plains Dexterity names do not help eCommerce developer – only probably as the reference on which table works with specific screen.

Let’s take a look at the tools available:

• eCommerce – together with eOrder, and other eXXX products it should be considered as legacy and phase out product, based on Microsoft eCommerce server and ASP technology, today Microsoft has new paradigm - .Net and ASPX World

• eConnect – was specially created for eCommerce developers, who integrate Microsoft Great Plains with eCommerce web interface. This tool covers a lot of Great Plains objects creation and retrieving functionality, however it does have restrictions, because it was not intended as replacement to Great Plains Dexterity shell. For example – if you create Orders in SOP via Web interface/eConnect – it is difficult manipulate these orders (transfers to Invoices, backorders, reallocations, etc.). Another issue with eConnect – developers are kind of used to the fact that Microsoft provides free SDK to its products, Microsoft CRM for example has freely downloadable Microsoft CRM SDK. For eConnect you have to pay license and be on Microsoft Business Solutions annual support to get version upgrades. Also if you are ISV and develop your GP integration to your customers – you have licensing issue with Microsoft.

• Custom SOP/AR stored procedures. Microsoft Business Solutions partners in their practice usually have several Great Plains integration projects implemented where integration is realized on the stored procedures level and transactions are created and manipulated in Great Plains SOP. So – you may end up seeking this type of help

Ecommerce Fundamentals

Ecommerce Fundamentals

"Blocking and Tackling" - A quick take a some eCommerce fundamentals

eCommerce can be VERY complex. To offer a world class customer experience, retailers must incorporate technologies and functionality that exceeds rising customer expectations.

On the flip side however, site fundamentals still play a very large role in converting visitors into customers. Many retailers surprisingly lose sight of these site basics and leave significant sales on the table. This brief examines 4 quick "fundamentals" every eCommerce manager cannot afford to lose sight of.

Think Fast

Speed has become less of a problem due to the penetration of broadband, but don't forget that a significant number of people still shop by a dialup connection. When creating a site framework, designers and e-commerce teams should ensure that the site is developed with pages loading in less than 9 seconds (over a dial-up connection).

Our recommended page size is within 60-70k in bytes. At that amount, sites will likely load within the maximum wait time of 9 seconds. Online retailers should avoid flash at all costs within their transactional site. Flash's artistic aspects may help you establish a brand presence - but it will likely lose potential customers before they have even searched within your store.

Image is important

Images are a very important aspect of selling online and are often neglected. All product images should be of the highest resolution possible, be much larger than the product page original, and have multiple views. Dynamic imaging capabilities can improve the user experience to an even higher level by increasing interactivity (zoom & rotate). At a minimum - retailers should have at least two additional views outside of the product page image to help build emotion.

Be my guest

Shoppers do not like being forced to do anything, especially when they are ready to open their wallets. Forcing a shopper to register on your site before purchasing is a sure way to drive a portion of your traffic to your competitors. Too often, shoppers do not have the time or the inclination to fill out a lengthy form explaining what types of information they desire.

Always offer the ability to checkout as a guest. You will see less customer leakage within the checkout process and can still offer the option to register when the sale is completed.

Make sure it's "above the fold"

Your homepage is the most important page within your eCommerce store. It sets the initial tone for the shopping experience and offers your best promotions and products to your visitors. Users typically visually scan a web page from top to bottom and then from left to right. All critical content and navigation options should be obvious to the shopper without having to scroll down. If you have your best promotions "below the fold" - you can bet that a large percentage of browsers are not scrolling down to see it.

Ecommerce Marketing Plan

Ecommerce Marketing Plan

Concept of Service

The current work deals with marketing offer of e-commerce service. It highlights the essential steps of marketing of a brand-new firm offering services of website construction, design, programming, development, and promotion. The service should be provided exclusively online via the site of the company. Online business operations include ordering, agreement on requirements, elaboration of design, and providing constant customer support.

The service implementation process should include the following stages:

- Defining goals of the site. This may include either physical meeting or discussion of the product in question via Internet. - Developing the website structure. This stage is aimed at flashing out technical aspects of the site. It should include definition of necessary technology, type and specifications of site navigation.

- Website design and built. Developing layout and graphics of the site. This may include elaborating the company's genuine creative approach in developing the graphic looks of the order, or complying with the requirements presented by the customer as to general look of the project.

- Website programming and built. This stage depends on details of each specific project and definite requirements posed as to the quality and level of the site. Also, this process varies according to the kind of customer and destination of the site contemplated. All features of the site are subject to examination and test by both company's specialist and customer.

- Technical release of the site. Once technical aspects of the project finished, the customer should be provided with free consultation along with further site marketing and promotion services, techniques, and practical advice.
- Ongoing site maintenance. This is the stage when the job of creating the customer's site is finished. But the company guarantees keeping all its sites current in terms of graphics, technology, navigation and usability. After release of the site, the company continues working with the customer as to establishing a schedule for the website regular review and maintenance to meet clients' requests, accommodate users' feedbacks, incorporating new system updates and new technologies.

It is a fact that the idea of the internet-commerce of this type is not brand-new, and for a new company to enter the market and receive profit out of its business, it is necessary to invent some novel elements in the service offered. The innovative elements that this project contains compared to large variety of competitors functioning on IT e-commerce market are based on combination of cost leadership and differentiation generic strategies (according to M. Porter, [1]). Therefore, the project is launched in B2C format, though there can be differentiation of customers and hence differentiation of the level and variety of services offered to each individual customer, and the project is for-profit, small business case. This new business is intended to compete with both large business providers of site development services and small business representatives dealing with this issue.

Another unique feature of the project is wide variety of services included in one business offer. This includes: web-design, redesign of existing site, possibility of working with many programming languages, site management, allocation in search engines, animation, free hosting offer, email registration, web mail and POP3 access, ftp access, tools for web statistics, domain name registration, other services like full life website consulting, flash animation creation, elaboration of graphic and logo design, e-commerce and shopping carts, site management, administering and maintenance, banner ads, marketing, engine position enhancing and promotions, search engine optimization, software testing and even online training.

Industry Overview

The industry of e-commerce is one of the fastest and most dynamically developing industries worldwide. Today it is quite difficult to accurately define the impact of the Internet on commerce in exact figures, but according to the estimates by 2000 there were about 260 million Internet users worldwide and by mid 2003 their number has grown more than twice and reached 580 millions. By 2005, their number is estimated to reach more than 770 million.
These figures show that the Internet has become very important and significant business medium through which buyers and sellers not only conduct transactions that were earlier conducted live, but carry out online-specific business buy-and-sell operations. Only three years ago, in the first three quarters of 2002, according to the figures of Department of Commerce [3], e-commerce transactions amounted to more than 20 billion dollars. It should be taken into account that those numbers are significantly lower than the amount of actual real transactions.

Today, e-commerce is booming. Market size of e-commerce has reached immense volumes. Moreover, this growth tends to accelerate. While in 2002 total volume of retail American e-commerce sales was fixed at $44 billion, one year later it increased to 56 billion. Then, in 2003, online sales made only 1.6 of total sales, providing the ground to suggest that there is very large growth potential. Online sales are predicted to rise to 2.9% by the year of 2007. Thus, Internet economy force became more integral part of the entire US economy than it has ever been. Research conducted by the Cisco Systems (available at [2]) shows that the Web is transforming the way people work and the revenue from Internet transactions annually grows by more than 50 percent. Jupiter Research [4] reports that American B2B Internet commerce rates increased noticeably over the past 5 years and amount from $336 billion in 2000 to $ 6.3 trillion in 2005. Jupiter mentions five industries that have more than half of all buying and selling operations online. These are: aerospace and defense, chemicals, electronics, motor vehicle and parts, and computer and communications equipment and software. Among these industries, computer and communications equipment and software is leading with estimated number of online sales in this 2005 year reaching to $1 trillion.

That is very important for the current study since the project in question is to be launched in computer and communications industry. Therefore, proceeding from the trends mentioned in the industry of electronic commerce, one can assume that the direction of one's business connected to online service and e-commerce, notwithstanding powerful competition, has all the chances to further develop and gain success since this market sector is subject to enhancement, development and transformation. Since the number of Internet users is growing and the number of companies willing to be represented on the Web is increasing along with the number of companies launching online business, there is very high and further increasing demand in providing programming, design, site development and marketing services. Therefore, a new firm in the industry theoretically has solid opportunities to enter the market, whatever saturated it may be, and successfully develop. On the basis of abovementioned, the outline of relevant business target market gets clearly seen.

Target Market

The target market of the project is very vast one. It varies from individuals with the minimum requirements as to functionality, appearance and program possibilities of the site, to large companies with more solid and expensive orders. Since there are very different kinds of customers with various interests and needs, each requiring different approach and professional level of performance, they should be segmented into distinct groups. By segmenting the customers, the company increases its chances on success.

The customers were divided according to the level of the desired product complexity. After such criterion, three levels can be distinguished: those requiring basic site development; intermediate level, and sophisticated one. Basic level implies comparatively low cost of services and is fine for individual customers, non-professional companies specializing, for example, in online selling of a small range of products. According to its name, this solution anticipates limited functionality, simple design, and quick implementation of the order.

Ecommerce that Makes Sense

Ecommerce that Makes Sense

We weigh the merits of ready-made and custom solutions to add ecommerce to your site.

In our last Tips we cautioned that just having a shopping cart on your website isn't enough to make ecommerce work. This month we'll weigh the merits of ready-made and custom solutions to set up ecommerce on your site.

IT ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE ANYMORE

There was a time when selling products online required months of conjuring by highly-paid programmers. Those days are gone. Large companies with complex requirements still need custom programming (to tap a mainframe for inventory information, for example). But for the vast majority of small businesses there's a ready-made solution.

Be wary of web programmers who propose to spend a large number of hours building a shopping cart. Either they've done this before and are trying to charge you full price for something they already developed, or worse, they've been living under a rock for the past five years and have never done an ecommerce site.

ADDING ECOMMERCE TO AN EXISTING SITE

If you already have a website, the first thing you should do is check the ecommerce solutions your web host offers. You may already have a solution available, or you may be able to pay a small upgrade fee to access one.
If you have a website with a list of your products online, you may try a shopping-cart-only service, such as 1ShoppingCart (www.1shoppingcart.com). This type of service lets you add "buy now" buttons to your existing web catalog. When a buyer clicks the button, she's taken from your website to a checkout area on the ecommerce provider's site.

This can be a quick and easy way to set up a shopping cart. A mid-range account with 1ShoppingCart costs $40 per month. The downside is that, although you can add your own logo, the checkout area doesn't look exactly like your site. This may discourage some buyers.

CREATING A NEW SITE WITH ECOMMERCE

There are a variety of web-based services which provide a complete shopping cart and product catalog system. Yahoo Store (store.yahoo.com) is a good example. For $50 per month and 0.5% of each transaction (that's in addition to whatever you pay your credit-card processing company) you get a fairly complete package.
You choose from a variety of templates and then set up your store. It takes about 1/2 hour if you have copy and digital product photos. One benefit of a Yahoo storefront is inclusion in their ecommerce directory. It's like opening a store in a mall that already has good traffic. The downside? Although it is possible to customize a Yahoo store, it may end up looking a bit "cookie-cutter" and unprofessional.

CUSTOMIZING A READY-MADE SOLUTION

For the most professional look and feel you'll want to hire a web development firm to customize a pre-built ecommerce system. Some web firms work with Miva Merchant (www.miva.com). Another example is Resolve Digital's REDiSHOP module. Costs are higher than a Yahoo store: a license is typically $500 - $1,000 and web development can range from around $2,000 to $10,000.

The advantage of this approach is that the firm uses pre-built functionality so you don't pay to reinvent the wheel. Your money will be spent on those aspects of the site which are unique to you-- professional graphics, layout, and branding-- all of which can increase consumer confidence in your site.

SETTING UP A MERCHANT ACCOUNT

A merchant account enables your website to accept credit card orders in real time. Customers enter credit card information and funds are deposited in your account automatically. Firms such as Charge.com provide this service fairly inexpensively.

Your credit must be approved and you have to pay setup, monthly, per-transaction-fixed, and per-transaction-percentage fees. These are generally around $200, $25, $.20, and 2.5% respectively. If you look around you may find a provider running a special and waiving the setup fee.

Most ecommerce systems offer a preferred merchant account vendor. If the prices are within the range noted above you might as well go with that to minimize setup. You can also get a merchant account through your bank, but it'll be more expensive.

CONCLUSION

If you'd like to test the waters of ecommerce inexpensively, a service like Yahoo may be your best option. If you want to present a more professional face to the public, hire a firm to develop your site by customizing a pre-built ecommerce product. And remember, avoid anyone who wants to build you a shopping cart system from scratch.

ECOMMERCE SOLUTIONS…THE CALL OF THE TIME

ECOMMERCE SOLUTIONS…THE CALL OF THE TIME

There really is no doubting the impact of Information Technology on our lives. And a significant example of this is the application of ecommerce in business. Conducting business transactions has been changed to a great extent. Just what are ecommerce or e-commerce solutions? Ecommerce or e-commerce is the purchasing or selling of goods or services as well as the transfer of funds in any way by means of electronic communications in inter-company and intra-company business dealings. Moreover, ecommerce solution is also a key to conduct business by means of technology through the internet. There are actually four types of ecommerce existing today and these are the following: business to consumer ecommerce, business to business ecommerce, consumer to business ecommerce and the consumer to consumer ecommerce.

The business to consumer ecommerce involves businesses selling products and services to various individual customers. This kind of ecommerce is also known as online trading and auctions. On the other hand, the business to business ecommerce involves the transactions commencing between companies in which they sell to other businesses. This type of ecommerce also includes a transfer of well thought-out messages with other business partners over private networks or internet in order to create and transform business processes. Moreover, the business to business ecommerce is deemed toward the improvement as well as the simplification of the various business processes inside a company. This type of ecommerce is also geared toward the maximization of the efficiency when it comes to the many transactions that a company engages into. Likewise, the business to business ecommerce is designed to achieve a quicker and flawless transaction that is controlled. Aside from that, business to business ecommerce is also effective in maintaining limited inventory as well as efficient enough to perform product refill and many more.

The consumer to business ecommerce is actually considered an unusual internet trend. Examples for this type of ecommerce are those individuals who for example are looking for hotels but have limited budget. What they do is that they place an ad on the internet saying that they are looking for a hotel at a rate that are just within their budget and then they also place there their contact numbers or email addresses if ever some hotels are interested. This example simply shows the marvelous capability of the internet to bring people together and create a cyber market wherein various people can transact their business.

On the other hand, the consumer to consumer ecommerce is considered to be the internet’s equivalent of an advertising market. This is where individual web users are allowed to put their ad for other consumers to react to. The advantage of this type of ecommerce is that people are able to save on advertising and then their ads are much faster and are easily reached by an unlimited number of customers like themselves.

Ecommerce Solution For The Big And Small Business

Ecommerce Solution For The Big And Small Business

Do you have a business? Were you told you needed an ecommerce solution to help your business? Do you need to know how and where to get an ecommerce solution? Perhaps you are not even sure what an ecommerce solution is. For those of you who have asked these questions, an answer has been found.

First off, you need to know what an ecommerce solution is. An ecommerce solution can be defined in many ways. An ecommerce solution is a way to define electronic shopping carts. An ecommerce solution is used for businesses that sell things on the web. An ecommerce solution makes it possible for any sale or transaction to be made. They enable the use of credit cards and other forms of payment to be used right on your website. It is used for large companies like Ebay or Amazon. But now an ecommerce solution is for small companies and businesses as well.

There are other aspects and definitions of this subject. An ecommerce solution can also be defined as software that allows you to do business on the web. It is also software that designs websites that are used just for selling products or services on the web. An ecommerce solution can also be defined as a company that hosts websites. Either way you look at it, an ecommerce solution is for anyone doing business on the web.

An ecommerce solution does many things, as you can now tell. Finding a good ecommerce solution can be a tedious task. The best thing to do is to go online and use a search engine. Type in ecommerce solution and look at the top websites listed that offer this. There are many ecommerce solution stores that offer free trials. Many often guarantee ease of set up, customizable solutions, and guaranteed results with powerful marketing tools and affiliate programs. All of this is included in a set price.

When looking for an ecommerce solution, shop around and see which one offers you the best deal. Most offer a set yearly fee. This can be anywhere from $300 to $800 a year. There are some ecommerce solution stores that offer a month to month contract, however. These are usually $55 to $100 a month. Many offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you are not happy with the results of the ecommerce solution and it's software.

With all of this in mind, you are that much closer to finding a great ecommerce solution. There are many options out there, so do your research. For anyone who wants to do business on the web, it is an absolute necessity. Soon you will be on your way to a profitable and successful web based business!

Ecommerce solutions for small business owners

Ecommerce solutions for small business owners

You are running a small business. Or You may have a web site but has not been generating a good income. Or You may have a web site, which is generating a good income, but you want to increase your income. Or You do not have a web site, but thinking of launching one.

If you fit in to any of above categories then this article is for you. The purpose of this article is to educate small business owners of how to launch and operate a successful e-business. Many technical jargons that you don't want to know but YOU MUST KNOW are explained in layman's words in this article.
Remember, web sites are not to stand still and collect E-dust. They should generate good income.

If you believe that having an attractive and a colourful web site is e-commerce or ebusiness, then I am afraid you are wrong. A good e-business solution should include the following.

1. Identify who are your visitors.
2. Identify and present clearly the benefits those visitors of your web site are going to get.
3. Visitors should achieve the purpose of visiting your web site fast (easy navigation). It can vary from find some information to purchasing goods or services. The rule of thumb is that a visitor should fulfil the purpose of visiting your site in maximum three clicks.
4. Information should be clean and easy to read.
5. Web site should be fast and should not take long time to load pages.
6. Web site should get a good Search Engine ranking. Also should get lot of visitors who are interested on your products or services (targeted traffic).

Now you have two options.

Option 1: Develop an e-business solution by yourself.

Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution for you.

Irrespective of which option you are going to select, you should know few important steps/terms used in the process.

1. E-commerce web site designing:
This is the development part of your web site. You should concentrate on the content of your web site, user friendliness, speed and the structure of your web site. Also it is important to use keywords related to your business properly in order to get high rankings on Search Engines.
Don't worry about this now. I will show you how easy this is. Keep on reading.

2. Domain name registration:
Domain name is the name of your web site Ex: http://www.preventiveguru.com
Domain name is unique for you and nobody is able to use your domain name when it is registered for you (for the period that you purchased). This is done through a web hosting company.

3. E-commerce web hosting:
This is where you store your web pages, so everybody can access your web site. This is done through a web hosting company.

4. Ecommerce Shopping Cart:
Similar to actual shopping carts at Supermarkets, you can use a virtual shopping cart in your web site. So Customers can purchase items online, put them in the cart and pay for the whole lot. Ebusiness software is used to develop digital shopping carts.

5. Credit card processing:
You need to talk to your bank and get a merchant account to process credit cards online. Alternatively, there are companies who do credit card processing for your web site. They charge a small processing fee for each transaction.

6. Shipping:
If you are going to sell hard goods, then shipping is one of the main tasks. Shipping can be done by yourself or there are fulfilment companies who do shipping for a nominal charge. You should sign an agreement with them and configure your web site to notify them about shipping details automatically.
OK, lets consider your options of developing profitable e-business solutions.

Option 1: Do it yourself.
I hear your questions. But it is not a very difficult task. Because there are good tools to automate most of above tasks. Thanks to these tools, business owners don't have to depend on others to run a successful e-business.
Your next step

1. Download FREE e-books for an A to Z explanation on how to do this from below web page. http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html
2. Study details about ecommerce automation tools described in the same web page.

Done? Fantastic. You are ready to start your journey.

Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution for you.

If you decided to go for a third party then you should know what to ask from them and what to look for. Most of ecommerce website developers concentrate on the look and feel of web sites. That along will never make you money.

Below are few important tips that you should discuss with your vendor.

Keywords: What are the main words related to your business and how are they going to use them efficiently?

Navigation: Structure of the web site and how easy to navigate and find information.

Search Engine Optimisation: How are they going to optimise your web site so that it will get good rankings?

Web hosting space: How much of space are they going to allocate for your web site.

Web statistics: Will they provide online statistics about visitors of your web site.

Statistics are very important to analyse the performances of each page in your web site. Below statistics are vital.

How many unique visitors per day. How many visits (page wise). Listing of entry pages. Listing of exit pages. Source of the visitor (search engine, web directory etc). What are the keywords that are been used to find your web site?

OK, What's next?

Download FREE e-books from
http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html
Read them carefully and understand the process in detail.
Then go and see your vendor.

Ecommerce Solutions Compared

Ecommerce Solutions Compared

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of businesses and organizations eager to assist and sell product online. Basically, they fall into four categories: credit card transactions, digital cash transactions, electronic fund transfers and telephone billing systems

The right choice for you depends upon your specific business requirements.

1. Merchant Internet Accounts. Pros: Consumers are familiar with credit cards with credit card transactions, consumers don’t have to download and install special plug-in. Credit card sales lends itself to impulse buying.

Cons: Consumers still have concerns regarding providing financial information online. This method does not lend itself well to the purchase of down loadable soft goods, such as software, art, graphics, etc

2. Electronic Cash Transactions Electronic money is an arrangement whereby the customer pays for the merchandise using, well, electronic money. Examples of this are the well known DigiCash, Cyberbucks, CyberCash, etc. Pros No credit card transactions are required. No concerns re charge backs. Lends itself well to micro payments.

Cons Many people are unfamiliar with the concept and shy away from unknown entities. Eliminates the possibility of impulse buying, unless both customer and merchant are already in same scheme. May not be available globally.

3. Electronic Fund Transfers Funds are transferred electronically from the customer’s bank account to yours. The best known method is the issuing of electronic checks Pros No credit card worries. Available to persons who don’t have credit cards

Cons A very new technology that some perceive as being less secure than other forms of ecommerce. Many customers aren’t set up to issue electronic cheques; time required to make the arrangements eliminates impulse buying. May not be available to international consumers.

4. Telephone Billing Systems A very new approach, telephone transactions allow the customer to purchase an item or service, and the amount is billed to his or her telephone bill. Pros Eliminates worries about credit cards (for both consumer and merchant) Safeguards soft merchandise â€" no possibility of theft or pirating. Cons Customer is required to download and install a plug-in. currently only available for soft merchandise but can do some limited transactions for hard goods. Currently available for sales using telephone modems and will not work for transactions over cable modems and ISDN lines.

Ecommerce Solutions

Ecommerce Solutions

All of the long, grueling nights and an unknown number of working weekends spent converting your dream into reality finally paid off—in a big way! Affiliates are signing up every single day and the clicks have really turned into cash. Your success is not limited to a lonely website but several and all of them are helping you move very diverse product lines. The effort has really paid off and you are milking this Internet cash cow for all its worth but there is one little problem, isn’t there? You have reached a point where growing your business even more is almost impossible because instead of developing or acquiring new products like you know you should, you are spending all of your time maintaining and servicing the sites you already have. By the time you get finished signing up and communicating with the affiliates, processing the orders and payment information, and handling the logistics of delivery—the day is gone and you are out of time!

Now don’t get me wrong, this is a terrific problem to have but the fact remains that if you are not growing your business then that business is dying! Besides, none of us started these websites just to be bogged down in the trenches, did we? It was the creativity and that rush from seeing the business grow from a single seed of an idea into the multi-domain, multi-product beauty it is now, right?

There is a way to free yourself from the day-to-day operations of your e-business—automation! That is absolutely correct because there are programs out there that can automate your multiple domains, divergent product lines, and multiple affiliate programs! What you desperately need is an Autoresponder Management solution that will automatically handle your affiliate sign-up and the terribly time-consuming task of payment processing and delivery! Such a system would allow you to streamline all of your varied websites and help you to generate the detailed reports you need to better analyze your results in a cost-effective and efficient manner! In fact, virtually all of the tasks that have prevented you from developing new products and acquiring others can in fact be fully automated in such a way as to leave control where it should be—in your hands—while completely freeing you to expand your initial vision even further! If a program can effectively manage all of the routines currently eating so much of your time in a more efficient manner, why even consider continuing to manage all of these tasks yourself? Isn’t working smarter and not harder what got you here in the first place?

Cost Effective Ecommerce Solutions

Cost Effective Ecommerce Solutions.

Ecommerce use to be about spending thousands of dollars on setting up your shop and hundreds of dollars on getting a merchant. My, how things have changed over the years. Now anyone with a few hundred of dollars in their pocket(or less if you have the time to learn it yourself) can have a great working ecommerce system up and running in the matter of days. This also includes the full ability to accept payments from Credit Cards, manage customers, create invoices and more.

The most cost effective ecommerce solution on the market today is Oscommerce.com . Why is it so cost effective, well because it is free. All you need to do is learn it yourself or get someone who works in the web world(a web designer or programmer) to set it up for you. This can run you anywhere’s from $500-$900, give or take a bit depending on the features you want and if you want it integrated into a custom built design. In a all in one solution you can set up products to sell, have a visitor sign up and pay via the osc(oscommerce) payment section, create an invoice for that client as well as deliver the product(if it can be transferred via email) or create a packing slip to be mailed out. These are just some of the features located in oscommerce.

Another great feature about oscommerce is that you can integrate it to fit right into your site design. If you view my site at www.Logo2D.com and click one of the links at the top(such as logo templates) you can see that it fits snugly into the design. You can customize any part of oscommerce including the buttons for the shopping cart. It is a really great program to use.

One of the hassle before with ecommerce was getting something that would process payment. Payment was a big issue as before it was very costly to get a merchant account, which usually cost around $400USD. Also you had to pay a % of every sale you made, which can really add up.

Today there are two great forms of payment that can be added to Oscommerce as your payment modules, they are Paypal.com and 2Checkout.com . These two options are a great way to go. Paypal.com is free to sign up, has over 78 Million accounts, only charges a small % of each sale/payment, can be funded by your credit card or bank account if you want to purchase something online and any sales you get you can take straight down into your bank account. Though the user does have to have a paypal account to pay you, but with 78 Million Accounts, you can see that is no problem.

2Checkout.com doesn't offer as many features in the way as you being able to purchase products offline, but it is great if someone is purchasing products off of you. It allows you to take payments via credit card and the customer doesn't even have to have a 2checkout.com account. It only takes a small % off when you take money down into your account. The only down side to 2checkout.com is that there is a one time fee of $49 to purchase a membership and they only send payment out twice a month(the middle of the month and the end of the month). So really not much of a downside at all.

So combine these three options and you can have a fully functional ecommerce website up for only a few hundreds of dollar!

A Successful eCommerce Website - Part 2

A Successful eCommerce Website - Part 2

Succeeding with an eCommerce website is a dream for many these days. It can be done no matter how difficult it may sometimes seem. this series covers some of the basic success factors - things you must consider in creating, implementing, managing and developing a quality eCommerce web site. There are a multitude of ways to do business on the internet - and a lot of ways to both make and lose money. Primarily these articles focus on eCommerce sites intended to sell products of various kinds, Not every factor will apply to every site, but since a major failing of many internet entrepreneurs involves the lack of multiple income streams, you should carefully consider all factors and apply them as needed in developing alternate revenue streams.

On examining your eCommerce web site, think carefully about how you can provide personal attention to each visitor. The idea here is personalization through which each visitor, if they wish, can develop a unique experience of your site.

Provide options through which the user can alter layout, colors, etc. Give customers the capability to create their own personal pages on your site. Perhaps offer a simple and easy to provide service to registered customers, such as free email accounts.

As well as building loyalty and stickiness, such features also build your customer database. Scripts are also available which will allow on-the-spot personalization based on responses to a series of questions. You can also use this kind of script to focus your sales message more tightly to the user's expressed interests.

Free services which can be provided on autopilot can be a virtually endless source of targeted customers. Everything from free email to blog hosting, opt-in list building to free advertising forums, all operate on the same principle as building a list through a newszine, white papers, free ebooks or whatever. In return for registration, e.g. name and confirmed email, you provide a service. Careful structuring can allow you to collect significant marketing information on your registered users which would allow well-targeted marketing campaigns.

Never lose track of a customer. Maintaining a database of customers with any of their prior purchases, interests, and so on, allows you to provide personalized purchase suggestions and special offers. The life-long value of a happy customer may be difficult to estimate accurately, but it’s far easier to sell to existing customers than to be continuously forced to acquire new ones.

Even if you only have a single product now, you have to eventually expand your product line(s). Don’t throw a buyer away. Stay in touch, offer information, occasionally recommend a high quality product you use and value. Build trust through value and quality.

To further expand the human dimension, you can add forums and chat rooms. Provide a variety of means to acquire visitor input. On site surveys and questionnaires, email surveys and opinion polls can not only increase your customers' sense of being in contact with real people who value their opinions and ideas, but also provide exceptionally useful information for refining your marketing and sales tactics. Loyalty programs and affinity networks can also help.

This is a lot like beating a real dead horse, but... Reliability and security are crucial. If your eCommerce site is big enough and busy enough, multiple parallel servers, redundant hardware, use of fail-safe technology, fast technical support service, high quality encryption, valid certificates, high quality payment processors and excellent firewalls will all allow you to ensure your customers that their data is safe, their orders are handled properly and nobody's getting their credit information that shouldn't.

Right now you may not need (or want to pay for) parallel servers, redundant hardware and fail-over technology, don’t ignore the rest. You depend on your ecommerce hosting provider to keep your business running. So think carefully and do some serious research. Overloaded servers, lack of redundant network connections, slow technical support, poor backup procedures can create a nightmare situation for both you and your customers.

As this part’s final idea to consider: smooth out your customer contact and support procedures. If multiple staff might come into contact with your customers (chat, phone or email) , providing all of them with the same (and useful) information about the customer, prior orders, any previous or current problems and so forth, can avoid a lot of potential frustration - and lost orders or, worse, a customer lost forever.

It can be incredibly irritating to have to tell the same story over and over, getting bounced from one person to another when no information ever seems to have been recorded. While it may cut down on repeat complaints, that’s usually because the customer is gone forever. Construct your systems so that no information is lost and so that the data needed to be responsive and helpful is instantly available. You may want to restrict some information which customers may not feel comfortable about everyone knowing.

Doing these things right can add significant credibility and usability to your online business, as well as build a loyal customer base which actually enjoys dealing with your eCommerce business. And that's a winning situation for everyone.

A Successful eCommerce Website - Part 1

A Successful eCommerce Website - Part 1

So you want to succeed at eCommerce? Welcome to a very large group. First off, let’s be clear that there are a lot of ways to do business on the internet - and a lot of ways to both make and lose money. No way can I cover all of them in a few fairly short articles.

This article is going to assume that you have some of the fundamentals, that you understand the language and that you are serious. I’m not going to tell you how to set up a web site or get a decent hosting account. We’re a bit beyond those basics. The basics here have to do with factors which will influence the success (or failure) and the degree of success an eCommerce web site experiences.

First and foremost, you need to provide value for your customers. Absurd as it seems to have to repeat that, a lot of so-called eCommerce sites provide no or very little value for their visitors. Pretending to offer value is not the same thing as providing value. Promoting miserably written, hackneyed, cloned ebooks filled with questionably useful and/or outdated content doesn’t make for a high value site. Sure you can make some money. Once. And you’ll likely have a high refund rate. Essentially you'd be taking advantage of the inexperience of your customers and abusing their willingness to trust you. Not a good path to a long-term business with steady repeat customers.

Value on the net is not very different from any kind of off-line retail sales -- a quality product line that will attract potential customers and a competitive price that will lead to purchases. An honest, quality product that will meet the expectations you’ve created in your buyers. Hyped junk won’t do it.

Next, you’ve got to have a smooth, user-friendly, easy to follow process all the way to your thank you page. The simpler, cleaner and clearer you can make the process, the better. Where it makes sense you can augment this user-responsive site profile by adding live-response chat.

If you do use call-in or live chat, it’s imperative that your operators be well-trained, understand your products and your system and BE customer friendly. This can be a difficult job if you outsource. The less expensive out-source alternatives can be a bad investment. You’ll need to check very carefully and be certain the operators do actually speak and understand the primary languages(s) of your targeted customer group. You’ll need to provide extensive background information and highly flexible, well-written scripts. You should also collect customer evaluations of these services - separately, and carefully monitor your results to be sure you are getting a decent return on the investment.

You need to have an attractive website. Some can do well with an ugly site, but, in that case, you need to really understand what you're doing and why it might work. The ugly site tactic is not for the inexperienced and very few individuals truly have the grasp of marketing and customer psychology that can lead to a successful "ugly" site.

To provide a pleasant experience, you need to be careful in what you use - colors, text-size, graphics, animation and white space can add value to your site or turn it into a user nightmare. Test your site with people who will tell you the truth. Just because you love it doesn't mean anyone else will. In general, aiming for a professional appearing site is your best option.

Wherever you can, provide incentives for customers to buy and to return. The return factor is a critical piece of a long-term strategy for success. Anyone who buys is your best possible future customer. Keep them, track them, make them special offers. Use coupons, discounts, special deals, customer-only offers and back end sales. Your customer base is your gold mine. They have at least some faith in you, enough to have purchased. Do your utmost to never damage that faith and treat them with the care they deserve.

Building Ecommerce Web Sites: Where Do I Start?

Building Ecommerce Web Sites: Where Do I Start?

Building a web site isn't something that is really cut and dry. There's a huge variety of products and services that can either help you get your web site where you want it or simply confuse you. It's also important that you make the right choices upfront so that you don't end up having to restructure your whole web site because of some problem in your design layout. The level of time investment neccessary for mastery in a lot of these software packages can range from little to a VERY significant amount. Because of this I feel it's important to be lead in the "right" direction to make sure you don't spend time in the wrong areas, or learning some software that might not be all that useful for you later on (*coughs* Frontpage *coughs*).

Where you should start greatly depends on what you plan on attempting to do, and how deep you're going to dive in. For a moderately professional, clean looking web site without a lot of automation or intensive animated graphics you can probably get by with some basic knowledge of html, ability with a good WYSIWYG editor, and an image editting program. On the other hand, if you're someone that's looking to build something that will really wow your audience then you might consider spending some major time and developing some animation skills with a program like Macromedia Flash. I personally always spring for what I believe will bring me the greatest amount of profit with a minimal amount of effort, and because of this I usually end up spending all of my time diving in deeper with ONLY my WYSIWYG HTML editor, and my image editor.

What is a "WYSIWYG" editor?

A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor is what allows you to get by with minimal knowledge of HTML. Yes, that means you don't have to know EVERYTHING about HTML to have a decent looking website. When you use a WYSIWYG editor it interprets what you're doing (inserting an image for example) as being a certain series of HTML tags with attributes, and does it for you... Thus, what you see on your screen is what you get. Instead of seeing a bunch of HTML code in text format, you'll mostly see what will actually show up in your browser once your web site is up WHILE you're making it. I highly recommend using the latest version of dreamweaver -- it is well-known as one of the best HTML editors by general consensus. Dreamweaver's interface is very friendly, has a built in FTP client, and is specifically built to be flexible enough to suit both the coder and the everyday amatuer webmaster.

Image editing? What do I need that for?

Okay, let's be realistic here: If you're going to make a professional *appearing* web site it's important that you can make some basic, decent looking graphics. There's a lot of graphics problems that can truly get the job done, but as far as power and flexibility goes I recommend Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop definitely takes some time getting used to, but in the end it's VERY rewarding. I've ended up using my knowledge of Photoshop to make not only graphics for multiple web sites, but also touched up portraits, made business cards, flyers, and other online advertisments such as banners. Infact, I've used it for everything except animation... But it also comes with Adobe Imageready which is very good with animation. This software is amazing, and if you're going to learn ANY image editing software I recommend you start with Photoshop because of it's wide range of overall... usefulness!

Let's get me some sales!

Kick off your new web site you've gotten up from your knowledge of webmastering and image editing with a few new sales... Sounds like a plan? Well a great way to do that quickly is with pay-per-click advertising. BUT WAIT! Doesn't that cost money? Well... Yes. But with the tools brought to us by some of the biggest pay-per-click advertisers out there we should be able to make a good evaluation of how much profit we're going to make without much investment upfront.

The big question behind pay-per-click advertising is whether or not it's worth the cash when you can simply get traffic from regular search engine ranking (otherwise known as organic traffic). Afterall, there are plenty of companies out there that promise to help get you all the traffic you need through optimizing your web site for organic ranking. The answer to this question is quite simple: profit is profit. Through conversion tracking tools such as those offered by Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords anyone can calculate exactly what their profit is after cost of PPC advertising is taken out. In my opinion, Google Adwords has the most user-friendly interface among the PPC advertisers. Google Adword's interface makes it very easy to see which keywords are pulling you in the most sales, and which ones aren't even worth your advertising money.

Let us not forget, however, that in order to make those conversions we're going to be needing a shopping cart! There's a lot of diverse software packages out there you can use, but I've been using Mal's E-Commerce Free shopping cart for a number of years with great success. The cart's server is hosted on their machines so that means you not only get away with not having to pay for the software itself, but you get out of having to buy an SSL security ticket too! Nothing's a better bargain than free, eh?

Getting those sales leads you've been building up to BUY!

Once you've scored a few sales it would probably be a good idea to start using some kind of lead management services. I highly recommend the use of autoresponders for this purpose. Autoresponders are, essentially, a newsletter sign-up that allows you to strategically determine what you want to send each lead after a certain alotted amount of time. For example, let's say someone visits your web site and you offer them a free newsletter. If you were selling an ebook on some very complicated topic, you might consider sending them only information on the most basic concepts at first to get them interested. Slowly but surely, you can turn those visitors that might have left your web site and never have returned into some serious revenue!

As far as autoresponders go, I highly recommend the use of Aweber. Their customer service is superb (seriously, these guys really know their stuff!) and can be contacted at any point during the business day via online chat or phone. They also offer tons of free information, and guides on making the most of their services. Check out their month long free trial at http://www.getaweber.com/.

Building eCommerce Websites that work - Part 3

Building eCommerce Websites that work - Part 3

An interesting eCommerce success factor that isn't precisely overlooked, but which is often thought about more in terms of being a way of feeding the search engine spiders has to do with providing content. In a very real sense the customer's job is to consume. That's why you're in business.

Think in terms of providing the information your customers need to do their job of consuming. What does that mean? Consider what you sell. The content on your site needs to focus on your products - whatever they happen to be. Reviews and comparative information on the items available through your web site can help focus and direct your customer to what they need, want and can afford.

Too often eCommerce sites use only marginally relevant information as content - or content that may match the general theme of the site but has nothing to do with what's being sold, promoted, etc. That could be more or less adequate as spider food, but it isn't going to help your customers do their job of consuming your products.

The better you combine these two goals - informing your customers and feeding the spiders - the better you'll do at both. Irrelevant search listings are pretty much a waste of your bandwidth. What you want is highly targeted customers interested in what you're offering and since the search engines love focused content and integrated sites, make that work for you.

And I'm not suggesting blatant repetitive hyped up sales copy. You want to inform, compare, offer added information that will help focus your customers. Use your content to develop desire and provide comparative information on similar products at varying price levels. Remember: desire not need.

While we all need things - and while you may be convinced everyone absolutely needs your product - we mostly buy based on desire - because we want it. The better you do at turning that need into immediate desire, the better your site will perform.

Again, not a fevered sales pitch. That's likely to turn off a large number of customers. Examples, stories and carefully chosen (and real) testimonials can support the process, too. Using video and/or audio can have a dramatic impact. Let your customers draw the obvious conclusions.

Along with providing plenty of comparison and review data, good search facilities are essential for a large eCommerce site. This also means that if you use a searchable product database that your keys and descriptions must be well-chosen and the links from search results to pages work smoothly and easily.

While we've talked earlier in this series about the importance of providing various ways to enhance the social aspect of your site, it's also important that customers be capable of using it without assistance. Never over complicate your site or your processes to the point that it's no longer obvious what to do to buy something (or complete whatever desired action you are focusing on).

A typical customer should be able to go from front page to product page to order page to thank you page easily and without hesitation or confusion. The simpler and cleaner the process, the better for you.

If you can manage it, test with 4 or 5 basically internet illiterate people. Watch carefully what they do, where they hesitate, what seems to cause confusion - but don't talk or help during the process. Then go over everything with them in detail working with your observations and their thoughts and feelings. Your site may be obvious to you, but is it obvious to anyone else?

And when you think you've covered anything, a few pairs of new eyes (or checking out your competitors' sites) can give you a whole new to-do list.

Your eCommerce site is an intentional business creation. Every aspect should be organized around what you want the site to do, what kind of visitors you want and what you want them to do. Everything on your site should be there for a specific reason that contributes to your goals for the site. And everything should be tested to be certain that it actually does contribute.

It's your site and your business so never take anything for granted, never assume something works if it can be tested. And never stop testing. With careful attention to detail and on-going testing you'll be able to make incremental improvements over time that will vastly improve the productivity of your eCommerce web site.

Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 2

Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 2

Succeeding with an eCommerce website is a dream for many these days. It may seem nearly impossible at times, but it can be done. This series covers some of the basic success factors - things you must consider in creating, implementing, managing and developing a quality eCommerce web site. There are many ways to do business on the internet - and, not surprisingly, a lot of ways to both make and lose money. Mainly, I'm focusing on eCommerce sites intended to sell products of various kinds. Not every factor is going to apply to every site, but since a major failing of many internet entrepreneurs is the lack of multiple income streams, you'd do well to carefully consider all factors and apply them as needed in developing alternate revenue streams.

On examining your eCommerce web site, put some serious thought into how you can provide personal attention to each visitor. The idea here is a process of personalization through which each visitor, if they wish, can develop a unique experience of your site.

Provide options through which the user can alter layout, colors, etc. Give customers the capability to create their own personal pages on your site. Perhaps offer a simple and easy to provide service to registered customers, such as free email accounts.

As well as building loyalty and stickiness, such features also build your customer database. Scripts are also available which will allow on-the-spot personalization based on responses to a series of questions. You can also use this kind of script to focus your sales message more tightly to the user's expressed interests. This technique has been reported to substantially increase conversion rates.

Free services which can be provided on autopilot can be a virtually endless source of targeted customers. Everything from free email to blog hosting, opt-in list building to free advertising forums, all operate on the same principle as building a list through a newszine, white papers, free ebooks or whatever. In return for registration, e.g. name and confirmed email, you provide a service that your visitors desire. The exchange of value is critical. The more valuable the service that you offer, the more willing people are to provide their information. Careful structuring can allow you to collect significant marketing information on your registered users which would allow well-targeted marketing campaigns.

Never lose track of a customer. Maintaining a database of customers with any of their prior purchases, interests, and so on, allows you to provide personalized purchase suggestions and special offers. The life-long value of a happy customer may be difficult to estimate accurately, but it's far easier to sell to existing customers than to be continuously forced to acquire new ones.

Even if you only have a single product now, you will eventually have expand your product line(s). Don't throw a buyer away. Stay in touch, offer information, occasionally recommend a high quality product you use and value. Build trust through value and quality. It's nearly impossible to over-emphasize this point. Look to the long term and plan ahead. Every serious marketer needs to do this.

To further expand the human dimension, you can add forums and chat rooms. Provide a variety of means to acquire visitor input. On site surveys and questionnaires, email surveys and opinion polls can not only increase your customers' sense of being in contact with real people who value their opinions and ideas, but also provide exceptionally useful information for refining your marketing and sales tactics. Loyalty programs and affinity networks can also help.

This is a lot like beating a real dead horse, but... Reliability and security are crucial. If your eCommerce site is big enough and busy enough, multiple parallel servers, redundant hardware, use of fail-safe technology, fast technical support service, high quality encryption, valid certificates, high quality payment processors and excellent firewalls will all allow you to ensure your customers that their data is safe, their orders are handled properly and nobody's getting their credit information that shouldn't. Many people still are extremely hesitant to purchase on-line because of fears of identity and/or credit card theft. You can't ignore this issue and hope to succeed.

Right now you may not need (or want to pay for) parallel servers, redundant hardware and fail-over technology, but don't ignore the rest. You depend on your eCommerce hosting provider to keep your business running. So think carefully and do some serious research. Overloaded servers, lack of redundant network connections, slow technical support, poor backup procedures can create a nightmare situation for both you and your customers.

As a final consideration for this part, smooth out your customer contact and support procedures. If multiple staff might come into contact with your customers (chat, phone or email) , providing all of them with the same (and useful) information about the customer, prior orders, any previous or current problems and so forth, can avoid a lot of potential frustration - and lost orders or, worse, a customer lost forever.

It can be incredibly irritating to have to tell the same story over and over, getting bounced from one person to another when no information ever seems to have been recorded. While it may cut down on repeat complaints, that's usually because the customer is gone forever. Construct your systems so that no information is lost and so that the data needed to be responsive and helpful is instantly available. In doing this consider that some information which customers may not feel comfortable about everyone knowing should be restricted to those who would actually need it.

Doing these things right can add significant credibility and usability to your online business, as well as build a loyal customer base which actually enjoys dealing with your eCommerce business. When you reach that stage, you're there - the true win-win situation that's makes an outstanding eCommerce web site.

Building eCommerce Websites That Work - Part 1

Building eCommerce Websites That Work - Part 1

You want to succeed at eCommerce? Welcome to a very big family. Right off, let’s be clear - there are lots of ways to do business on the internet. And lots of ways to both make and lose money. Successful eCommerce websites come in all shapes, kinds and colors and while I can't cover every type of site in this series, I will present the basics you need to consider and apply for an eCommerce web site to be successful.

Let's begin by assuming you have some of the fundamentals, that you understand the language and that you are serious. I’m not going to tell you how to set up a web site or get a decent hosting account. We’re beyond those basics. The basics here are the factors which will influence the success (or failure) and the degree of success your eCommerce web site experiences.

First and foremost, you need to provide value for your customers. Absurd as it seems to have to repeat that, a lot of so-called eCommerce sites provide no or very little value for their visitors. Pretending to offer value is not the same thing as providing value. Promoting miserably written, hackneyed, cloned ebooks filled with questionably useful and/or outdated content doesn’t make a high value web site. Sure you might make some money. Once. And you’ll end up with a high refund rate - and an unhappy credit card processor. That path means you're taking advantage of inexperienced customers and abusing their willingness to trust you. This isn't the way to a long-term business with steady repeat customers.

Value on the net is not very different from any kind of off-line retail sales -- a quality product line that will attract potential customers and a competitive price that will lead to purchases. An honest, quality product that will meet the expectations you’ve created in your buyers. Hyped junk just doesn't cut it.

Next, you’ve got to have a smooth, user-friendly, easy to follow process all the way to your thank you page. The simpler, cleaner and clearer you can make the process, the better. Where it makes sense you can augment this user-responsive site profile by adding live-response chat.

If you do decide to use call-in or live chat, it’s imperative that your operators be well-trained, understand your products and your system and be customer friendly. This can be a problem if you outsource. The less expensive out-source call centers can turn out to be very expensive in terms of lost sales and customers who never come back.

You’ll need to check very carefully and be 100 per cent certain the operators actually speak and understand the primary language(s) of your targeted customer group. You’ll need to provide extensive background information and highly flexible, well-written scripts.

You should collect your own customer evaluations - separately. Don't rely exclusively on any monitoring or customer satisfaction surveys provided by the call center. Track your ROI to be sure it's money well-spent. Don't stop monitoring just because the results looked good for the first two or three months. Things change. Make sure you're tracking desired actions linked to the call center separately from those NOT related to call-in or live chat. Mixing outcomes leaves you in the dark about what's really happening.

You probably should have an attractive website. An ugly site can work, but to do that you need to absolutely know exactly what you're doing and why it should work. And you'll have to test like crazy to optimize (of course, you should be doing that anyway). The ugly site tactic is not for the inexperienced. Very few individuals really have the grasp of marketing, market and customer psychology that makes for a successful "ugly" site.

To provide a pleasant experience, you need to be careful in what you use - colors, text-size, graphics, animation and white space can add value to your site or turn it into a user nightmare. Test your site with people who will tell you the truth. Just because you love it doesn't mean anyone else will. In general, aiming for a professional appearing site is your best option. Look for the highest ranked, busiest sites in your business area and study the layouts they use. Extract the common features that you see on those sites. While other factors heavily influence traffic and ranking, appearance has a strong effect on visitors and sites that do testing evolve toward optimizing visitor behavior.

Keep in mind that a site's desired actions affect the design and layout. You'll want to study sites where those actions are most similar to the desired actions you target on your web site. If your goal is direct product sales, there's not much point in emulating a site that's optimized for newsletter sign-ups or AdSense.

If your main goal is direct sales (and if it is, then you need backend products too), provide incentives for customers to buy AND to return. The return factor is critical to a long-term strategy for success. Anyone who buys is your best possible future customer. Keep them, track them, make them special offers. Use coupons, discounts, special deals, customer-only offers and back end sales. Your customer base is your gold mine. Since they've shown enough faith in you to buy, do your utmost to never damage that faith. Treat them like the priceless resource they are. Think long-term: successful eCommerce websites are all about value and customer service.